stand under a group of patrician trees, are suffered to die of natural decay. Charlecotte, has a renown given to it by Shakspeare, which the present owner and direct descendant of Sir Thomas Lucey would willingly let die. The present young Lord of the Manor, feels to this day, the sting of the Poet's sarcasm upon his ancestor.

The whole neighborhood around is full of beauty. The ground is passing rich, while at every moment through some leafy avenue, glimpses are caught of the "gently flowing Avon." Amid these dells, and by these verdant hill-sides, was the youth of Shakspeare nourished, and taught of nature:

"Here, as with honey gathered from the rock,

She fed the little prattler, and with songs

Oft soothed his wondering ears with deep delight."

Every step you tread is hallowed ground. Here in all this neighborhood he passed many a happy hour when a boy; or when he retreated back to his birth-place, from the turmoil of a busy life, to die like the deer "where he was roused."

K

CHAPTER VII.

Hampton Court and Bushy Park.

"Close by those meads, forever crowned with flowers,
Where Thames with pride, surveys his rising towers,
There stands a structure of majestic frame,

Which from the neighboring Hampton takes its name."

The Poet's pencil has not, with all the richness of its coloring, given full expression to the natural beauties of Hampton. Just as the most finished artist fails to catch the rich tinge of Aurora's fingers along the glowing East, so the Poet has failed from want of power to give expression in his poem, to all the luxuriance and loveliness of the natural beauties of Hampton. Well might an enthusiastic tourist exclaim as he grew enraptured o'er the remembrance of the unrivalled beauty of its landscape: "That nature at Hampton builds up aisles and transepts, courts and halls of her own-mighty pillars, far excelling in sublimity the memorials of the magnificent Wolsey: and she here displays brilliant landscapes, before which the drawings of Raphael, the composition of Poussin, the coloring of Claude, must sink into insignificance."

No city in the world can boast of more charming environs than London. What delightful rural retreats are furnished in the opening lawns and verdant glades of Bushy Park, or in the shaded terraced walks of lofty Richmond, o'erlooking all the vale, with its noble Park, where the red deer love to haunt! What place more serene in its quiet beauty than Esher, in whose lonely vale,

"The Mole glides lingering;"

or Claremont in its close vicinity. And there is noble Windsor, with all the rich memories that haunt its feudal pile "from turret to foundation stone"-and the aged oaks of its grand old Forest chronicling centuries, with the verdant sward o'ershadowed by those stately elms, "in the long drawn aisles" of its magnificent Parks.

Hampton occupies a peninsula almost encircled by the Thames. The Palace, however, to the generality of tourists, affords the greatest attraction of Hampton. Like all the structures in England, full of historic memories, it is the more interesting, because its incidents are so familiar. We gaze upon the Castles, and ruined fortresses of the middle ages on the continent; but the associations they awaken are unsatisfactory: we see everything as through a mist, unsubstantial, shadowy, and vague. But in England, they start out in bold reality-and once familiar with the scene,-the figures of the past, that busy memory conjures up, pass over the stage with the show of an almost living presence. Thus is it at Hampton. As you gaze upon that grand old pile, the mind is carried instinctively back to the stirring and familiar times, when Wolsey lived here in more than royal state; when Elizabeth summoned Shakspeare to entertain her upon the stage, when the unhappy Stuart here found him. self the prisoner of his subjects: and his oppressor led a a life of suspicion, and never ending fear, finding that even the outside show and semblance of sovereignty, brought with it all the cares that wait upon a crown. But the changing fortunes of the founder of this ancient palace, awaken as you gaze upon it, the most interesting memories. Romance has no tale so full of interest-life no real story of vicissitude half so strange; and death no

scene of more thrilling horror-than may be read in those historic pages, which record the strange history of that son of the obscure butcher of Ipswich, who, from his nest upon the ground, soared so high; who from the shambles, reached that point of exaltation, when

"Law in his voice, and fortune in his hand,

To him, the Church, the realm, their power resign."

And then that startling, sudden fall, where having touched the highest point of all his greatness, he fell,

"Like Lucifer,

Never to rise again."

At the Restoration, this Palace reared by the munificence of Wolsey passed into the hands of that shrewd soldier, Monk, Duke of Albemarle, offered to him by a grateful monarch, as a reward for the conspicuous part he played in the great event. But he was too politic to hold a place, that he had not the revenues to support, and accepting a large sum of money in lieu thereof, it reverted back to the crown, in whose possession it has ever since remained. From the reign of the second George, I believe it has not been honored as the residence of the sovereign, and at the present day many of the apartments are occupied by the widows of soldiers, and men who have done the state some service; but whose limited means compel them to accept this asylum offered to them, by a grateful sovereign.

Pope has rendered Hampton Court classic ground, by locating within its calm and beautiful retreats, the scene of his celebrated "Rape of the Lock." Here, side by side, with the beautiful Miss Lepel, afterwards Lady Hervey, he was in the habit of wandering; and here he drew

from nature, the illustrations that make that poem so charming. How exquisitely does he depict the mode of killing time by inches, in vogue with the courtiers of that day:

"Hither the heroes, and the nymphs resort

To taste awhile, the pleasures of a court;

In various talk th' instructive hours they passed-
Who gave the ball, or paid the visit last!
One speaks the glory of the British Queen,
And one describes a charming Indian screen;
A third, interprets motions, looks, and eyes,
At every word, a reputation dies.

Snuff and the fan, supply each pause of chat,
With singing, ogling, and all that."

But let us hasten to enter the Palace, rendered so interesting by the historic and literary associations that cluster about it. Of the five courts, composing the original palace of Wolsey, only two now remain in the condition. they were during the time of the Cardinal. The first, or outer court, is said to be precisely in the condition it was left by him; but it is by no means improved by a long line of stables and barracks, always unsightly, but never more so, than when they disfigure walls, hallowed by the. traditions and remembrances of the past. Standing beneath the colonnade at one end of the middle quadrangle, you have a good view of the south side of Wolsey's Hall, with the great windows. The octagonal turrets on either side. of the gateway are highly characteristic of the architectural taste of the time. The medallions of Roman Emperors in terra cotta, placed in the brickwork of these towers, and on those of the adjoining court, are said to have been the gifts of the celebrated Leo X. to the Cardinal. The oriel windows on both the gateways of this court, adorned with the escutcheons of Henry VIII. have great